by Ian Frazier Farrar, Straus & Giroux 181 pages; $14.95

Ian Frazier, 36, is an employee of The New Yorker, where during the past eleven years he has written occasional humor (Dating Your Mom, a collection, appeared last year) and factual stories, including the five pieces gathered together in Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody. On the surface, it would appear that Frazier does not exactly knock himself out with work. In fact, he confirms this impression, openly admitting to lallygagging on the job. In the first sentence of "An Angler at Heart," he confesses that he has often "taken a walk from the offices of The New Yorker along Forty-third Street...